Ever Smaller

by Albert Bleunard

  The dentist was less expansive in his admiration, however. “You ought to have warned us,” Camaret said, addressing the old man reproachfully. “It’s your fault that the doctor and I nearly broke bones falling over.”

  “No,” Al-Harik replied, immediately. “No, I knew there was no danger. I wanted, above all, to let events take you by surprise. On a voyage, the unexpected is agreeable—you know that as well as I do. You’ve just undertaken a voyage to an unknown country.” Then, turning to the doctor and the optician, he added: “You know what you promised, gentlemen: you mustn’t hide anything from me, and must tell me in the most minute detail everything that you have seen and felt. Would you like to go into the drawing-room, then, where refreshments are awaiting us, and you’ll be able to make a complete recovery.”

  IV. In the Forest

  The next morning, at the same time as the previous day, the three friends found themselves together again in Al-Harik’s laboratory. Soleihas had filled his pockets with magnifying-glasses, telescopes and microscopes. Camaret was sagging under the burden of his photographic apparatus. As for the doctor, he was an ambulant pharmacy. He was carrying 50 little bottles full of medicines and an enormous bag containing all the surgical instruments necessary for dressing a wound. Paradou had, indeed, rightly observed that a voyage undertaken in such novel and extraordinary conditions might be more dangerous than an exploratory expedition in the most distant and least known regions of the globe.

  The new experiment necessitated a special plan, unnecessary the day before. As our voyagers were to leave the bell-jar for an excursion to the garden lawn, it was agreed that Al-Harik would place a little slide, similarly made of glass, on the glass plate of the bell-jar. As soon as they had reached sufficient small dimensions, Paradou and his companions would climb on to that slide, there to await the conclusion of their transformation. Thus positioned on a new kind of vehicle, it would become easy to transport them to the lawn, like three tiny ants that had strayed on to the glass plate.

  This program was scrupulously carried out. Thilda, as strange as on the previous day, went into the bell-jar with the companions. When the bell chimed, the transformation began gradually to take effect, and the young woman soon disappeared into the distance, in the midst of the yellow atmospheric vapors. At the desired moment, the three companions gathered together on the glass slide and waited patiently for the conclusion of their diminution. They all remained silent.

  Suddenly, a gigantic mass approached them with vertiginous rapidity. They uttered a screech of fright in unison.

  Soleihas was the first to understand the phenomenon. “Have no fear!” he shouted to his friends. “It’s Al-Harik’s hand coming to pick up the slide.”

  The hand was very strange, though! It was reminiscent of a hill with gorges, ravines and trees; it was peppered with cavities.

  “Come on, Camaret,” the optician went on, “Aim your black box at Al-Harik’s finger.”

  “Finger!” cried Camaret, still trembling with fear. “That, a finger? Never in this life!”

  “But those gorges and ravines,” Soleihas replied, “are the wrinkles in the skin; the cavities are the pores through which sweat escapes.”

  “What about the greasy poles bristling on the summit?” demanded the dentist, peevishly. Camaret could joke, now that he was no longer afraid.

  “They’re hairs,” Soleihas replied.

  “We can be proud of seeing them so strangely,” said the amateur photographer, while aiming his black box at the singular hill. “I’d never have believed that a finger could look like that. No one will believe us when we recount such extraordinary things. We’ll be treated as lunatics.”

  Camaret was right; people are always treated as lunatics when they venture beyond the ordinary. Great inventors have seen the crowd looking at them with scorn; the majority died misunderstood, without having witnessed the triumph of their ideas or their discoveries.

  At that moment, an extremely violent storm-wind began to blow. Camaret had just enough time to grab his hat and his apparatus before they were carried away by the wind.

  “A thousand curses” he cried. “It’s still impossible to take photographs with that bitch of a wind!”

  What was this new phenomenon that had emerged so unexpectedly?

  Soleihas searched for a plausible explanation, while bracing his limbs and bending is back, in order to resist the tempest that was blowing with even greater violence. “I’ve got it!” he suddenly cried, as Archimedes had once done when leaping out of his bath and running through the streets of Syracuse.

  “What have you got?” demanded his two companions, simultaneously, struggling no less energetically on their own behalf against the hurricane.

  “The cause of the wind,” the optician replied. “It’s Al-Harik transporting us to the lawn. Our displacement relative to the air is producing this tempest.

  At the same instant, the wind eased as if by magic. Al-Harik’s finger disappeared and the three friends found themselves in the middle of an immense forest.

  “It’s like being in a fairy tale!” Paradou exclaimed. “This is certainly a nice change of view.”

  Swiftly, they all leapt down from their platform. They were in a vast clearing, surrounded by gigantic trees, with depths that testified to the immensity of the forest. But how little these trees resembled those of ordinary forests. They might have thought they had been transported to another world, on some distant planet.

  Marveling at the spectacle, Soleihas and Camaret were already moving into the shade when Paradou’s voice called them back.

  “My friends,” he said to them, “permit me to give you some advice: be prudent, and advance slowly. We don’t know whether this forest conceals animals that might be dangerous. Let’s also make sure that we don’t get lost.”

  “Let’s do what Petit-Poucet did, then,” said Camaret, who immediately began collecting small white pebbles.

  “You don’t think, then, my dear doctor,” remarked Soleihas, more serious than the doctor, “that Al-Harik is following our walk through the grass? If so, we can go astray without fear; he’ll always be able to find us and transport us back to the bell-jar when the time comes to resume our usual size.”

  “Yes,” Paradou replied, “perhaps you’re right—but one can’t be too careful, especially in a situation as extraordinary as ours.”

  All three of them moved into the forest this time, but with less urgency.

  Humans complain incessantly about the lack of variety in their existence. For certain elite souls, new spectacles are always necessary, awakening unknown sentiments and sensations in them. Voyager, behold their ideal!

  How marvelous Al-Harik’s discovery was for those avid for discovery! It permitted them to satisfy their aspirations and to study around them the splendors of the infinite variety of a nature previously hidden from their gaze by its smallness. Without onerous displacement, they could now contemplate countless marvels in the idle of a lawn, in the mosses of a rock, or even in the molds that grow between the paving-stones of a solitary street. No need to go to the four corners of the world. To become a thousand times smaller—that’s the solution to the problem, destined to ruin railway and steamship companies.

  O voyagers, stop riffling through your guide-books to the Alps or the Pyrenees; stop crossing the Atlantic to visit virgin forests, the prairies of the New World or Niagara Falls; it is sufficient to travel in a meadow to contemplate spectacles even more marvelous. What are the Alps and the Pyrenees, in spite of their cloud-lost summits, and the forests of the New World, compared with the mounds of earth, blades of grass and trickles of water, magnified a thousand times, that our three voyagers were now contemplating?

  The ground they trod was bristling with enormous rounded blocks of stone, piled one atop another in rightful disorder. They could only advance slowly, under threat of dislodging one of these blocks, the least of which could crush them in its fall. Grains of sand for simple mortals, these
fragments of quartz had become imposing and redoubtable masses to them.

  One tree attracted their attention by virtue of its gigantic proportions and singular appearance. Its height was prodigious; it could be estimated at 150 meters at the least. Its cylindrical stem had periodic swellings forming nodes. Its foliage comprised flattened ribbons, very long and very narrow; they floated in the wind like immense flags. This extraordinary tree was a sprig of grass.

  How, though, can the astonishment of our voyagers be described at the sight of this vulgar plant, which people trample underfoot every day without even noticing, but which constituted for them the most splendid forest? They could not stop admiring that colossal stem, at the summit of which swayed, at the caprice of the wind, a floral spray that was lost in distant space. It was marvelous and frightening at the same time, for that long reed leaned over with its plume until it almost touched the ground, and stood up again proudly only to lean over again. And what could one say about those immense leaves, the least of which attained 50 meters in length, incomparably elegant with their parallel ribs?

  After admiring the sprig of grass, our three friends resumed their course through the forest. Soleihas, who was walking some way ahead, suddenly stopped and showed his companions and enormous black mass, which might have been about five meters long, clutching the trunk of a tree. Then, taking his binoculars out of his pocket, he started looking through them at the strange apparition—but Camaret did not give him time to discover what species of animal it might be. As soon as he saw it, he cried: “It’s a fly!”

  “You’re right, my brave Camaret,” said Soleihas, who could make out the smallest details of the insect with his binoculars. “Yes, it is indeed a fly.”

  They drew nearer cautiously, making as little noise as possible, in order not to frighten the insect—but the latter did not seem to have noticed the presence of the voyagers.

  “It’s tame!” exclaimed Camaret.

  “No,” observed Paradou, “there’s nothing extraordinary in the fly not being wary of us. If anyone ought to be afraid here, it’s us, not the fly—which is three times as big as we are.”

  The doctor had scarcely finished speaking when a frightful buzzing filled the air. The insect was about to take flight, and its wings were agitating the air so violently that the wind nearly knocked the imprudent voyages over. It pivoted momentarily, and came to land on the ground a short distance away. Paradou and his companions advanced slowly, on tiptoe, in order not to cause it to fly away again. They were able to approach close enough in his manner to touch the animal.

  “See,” said the doctor, “how we have lost our prestige in becoming so tiny. This fly no longer fears us.”

  Indeed, the insect did not seem to be aware of the presence of the three men. It rubbed its wings and head with its two front paws, carrying out its toilette careless of the proximity of the kings of creation. Poor kings, they made a circuit of the fly in order to make a better study of all its details: its wings, armed with innumerable hairs; its curious trunk, with its mandibles; its multiple jaws; its stylets. Most of all, its eyes, each with more than 500 facets, attracted their attention. Camaret, not very well versed in insect anatomy, could not get over it, and never ceased uttering exclamation of surprise.

  “A thousand eyes! A thousand eyes!” he cried. “It needn’t be afraid of having a few of them damaged!”

  Having climbed on to a nearby rock in order to see the animal’s back, Paradou called out to his friends in order to show them something extraordinary. It was a flat mass, reminiscent of a large drawing-pin, which was plunging a long proboscis through the fly’s epidermis in order to suck its blood.

  This singular creature was a parasite of the fly, for all earthly animals their parasites, from the top to the bottom of the scale. Intestinal worms, fleas, lice and fungal infections, beggars and idlers all, eat to the detriment of the human species. Flies do not escape the common law; they also have their parasites, which devour them.

  The insect remained so motionless now that Camaret resolved to photograph it. He therefore aimed his apparatus and was getting ready to uncover the objective lens when yet another incident arrived to spoil everything. The fly, abruptly taking off, struck the photographer with its wing—which knocked him to the ground, dragging the black box with him as he fell.

  Camaret bounded to his feet, ashamed and confused, as any man knocked over by a fly would be. He was seething with rage. He picked up his black box, replaced everything on his back and rejoined his companions—who had moved forward again—at a run.

  The forest gradually changed its appearance. The obscurity became more intense and a thick dome of verdure hid the sky almost entirely from view. Instead of rising up vertically into the air, as they had before, the trees snaked in all directions. Sometimes they rose up to a prodigious height above the ground; then, curling around in spirals of infinite boldness, they conserved an astonishing horizontality for hundreds of meters. Thick branches emerged from the trunk, each terminating in a frail petiole supporting a immense flower composed of three leaflets. From the foot of each tree a long stem departed, crowned on its upper extremity by an enormous bouquet of flowers, of the most picturesque sort.

  Soleihas, armed with binoculars, examined these flowers attentively in order to determine the species to which this extraordinary plant belonged.

  “This is truly original,” the doctor remarked. “It’s the first time in my life that I’ve seen botany done with binoculars. Thus far, people have limited themselves to magnifying-glasses and microscopes. If this continues, we’ll need a telescope. Well, have you indentified these trees?”

  “Yes, my dear friend,” replied Soleihas. “We’re in a forest of clover.”

  “Like vulgar rabbits!” Camaret objected.

  “Less than that—like ants,” said Paradou. “Would you care to help me measure the length of this stem, my dear Camaret?”

  “Gladly,” the dentist replied.

  Departing from the foot of the tree, Paradou followed a stem that remained parallel to the ground for its entire length. He counted thus to seventy paces.

  “Seventy paces,” he said, returning to his companions. “That represents about 60 meters. Now, as we’re reduced to a thousandth of our natural height, those 60 meters only represent six centimeters, so….”

  “Sixty meters worth six centimeters!” cried Camaret, raising his arms to the Heavens while making the most grotesque contortions and the most risible grimaces. “That tree measures 60 meters, which is to say, six centimeters! My poor Camaret, you’re no longer anything but an imbecile, for you don’t even know any longer what a meter is.”

  And here goes our dentist, striding over the ground like a madman, muttering between his teeth: “You go 60 meters...no, triple idiot, you’ve gone six centimeters…” Then he jumped. “You’ve jumped a meter…but no, Camaret, you’ve jumped a millimeter.” Covering his face with both hands, he started laughing in fits. Then, suddenly, he launched himself forward again and bumped into Paradou, who stopped him in flight.

  “Monsieur Paradou, I beg you,” he said to the doctor, “tell me whether I’m dreaming or whether I’m awake. A millimeter can’t be a meter?”

  “Listen carefully, Camaret,” the doctor said to him. “Your error arises because you’re used to considering units of measurement as absolute. On the contrary, all dimensions in nature are relative. Thus, when you become a thousand times smaller…”

  Paradou was abruptly interrupted in the middle of his scientific dissertation by a loud noise, which burst out in the distance and made all the echoes of the forest tremble.

  Frightened, the three companions fell silent and put themselves on guard, ready to receive the enemy’s attack. It must be confessed that they were beginning to be seriously alarmed by so many extraordinary events.

  “I think we’re taking big risks in Al-Harik’s experiments,” said the doctor. “When a fly’s wing is sufficient to knock us over, we have a good d
eal to fear from more ferocious animals. I advise you to be very cautious.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” Soleihas replied. “We were wrong not to bring weapons with us; next time, we must take more precautions.”

  The noise had ceased. It began again, still as intense and strident as a locomotive’s whistle, with modulations that were not unfamiliar.”

  “But that’s the call of a cricket!” Camaret exclaimed.

  “Then it’s a cricket that has a steam engine in its belly,” said the doctor.

  Camaret proposed that they go to find the cricket. “I caught so many crickets in my youth,” he said, “that I wouldn’t be afraid of it, even if it were as big as a cathedral.”

  They headed in the direction from which the noise was coming. A little further on, they encountered large birds resembling flies but the size of a duck. They were gnats.

  “A thousand curses!” cried Camaret. “How I regret not having brought a rifle! What a fine hunt we could have undertaken here—I’m beginning to get hungry. The odor of grass and clover definitely hollows out the stomach. With a couple of gnats we could have done a roast, and what a fine lunch we’d have had! Would you ever have suspected that we’d dine on gnats one day?”

  The vegetation was becoming denser as they approached the thicket from which the cricket’s call seemed to be coming. Soon, they could only advance with extreme difficulty. The noise was becoming deafening now. There was no longer any doubt about it; the animal really was hidden in the midst of that foliage.

  Eventually, after some research, they discovered a sort of path and set out along it resolutely. They had only gone a few paces when the path ended abruptly at the foot of a large rock, hidden until then by the trees. Soleihas, who was at the head of the column, looked to his right and uttered a scream of terror.

  “What a monster!” he cried, taking a step backwards.

  Momentarily surprised, the three friends advanced prudently alongside the cricket. No more terrifying spectacle can be imagined than the one they had before their eyes. The rock was pierced by an enormous cavern, and there was a gigantic animal lying on the threshold, 50 meters long and at least ten meters high, with its breadth in proportion.